JESUS CHRIST SUPERSTAR

Act I

Heaven on Their Minds

[hooded figure] [Judas standing, questioning] [Judas pleading with Jesus] [Judas apart from the other apostles] [Judas brooding]

What's The Buzz

[Apostles look on, eagerly] [Jesus clasps Simon]

Strange Thing, Mystifying

Luke 15:1 Then drew near unto [Jesus] all the publicans and sinners for to hear him.

2 And the Pharisees and scribes murmured, saying, “This man receiveth sinners, and eateth with them.”

[Apostles look across, bewildered] [Judas looks down at Mary]

Everything's Alright

[Mary anoints Jesus with precious oils]

John 12:1 Then Jesus six days before the passover came to Bethany, where Lazarus was which had been dead, whom he raised from the dead.

3 Then took Mary a pound of ointment of spikenard, very costly, and anointed the feet of Jesus, and wiped his feet with her hair.

4 Then saith one of his disciples, Judas Iscariot, Simon's son, which should betray him,

5 “Why was not this ointment sold for three hundred pence, and given to the poor?”

7 Jesus replied, “Leave her alone: she has kept this against the day of my burial.

8 “For the poor always you have with you; but me you have not always.”


This Jesus Must Die

[The high priests, distant] [The high priests, middle-distance, Annas questions Caiaphas] [Caiaphas as he ponders Jesus' popularity]

John 11:47 Then the chief priests and the Pharisees gathered a council and said, “What shall we do? For this man is performing many miraculous signs.

48 “If we let him alone like this, everyone will believe in him, and the Romans will come and take away both our place and nation.”

49 And one of them, Caiaphas, being high priest that year, said to them, “You know nothing at all!

50 “Nor do you consider that it is expedient for us that one man should die for the people, and not that the whole nation should perish.”

53 So, from that day on, they plotted to put him to death.

Hosanna

Matt 21:9 The crowds that went ahead of him and those following kept shouting, “Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest!”

[Jesus enters Jerusalem to palm leaves and adoring crowds]
[Jesus' followers fight off the temple guard]

Luke 19:39 But some of the Pharisees called to him from the crowd, “Teacher, rebuke your disciples.”

40 He answered, “I tell you, if these should keep silent, the very stones would cry out!”

Simon Zelotes

[The crowd worships Jesus] [Simon encourages Jesus to lead the people against the Romans] [Simon shouts!]

John 6:14 Then [his disciples], when they had seen the miraculous sign that Jesus performed, said to one another, “This is truly the Prophet who is to come into the world.”

15 Therefore when Jesus perceived that they were about to come and take him by force to make him king, he departed again […] by himself alone.

Poor Jeruselem

[Jesus wept]

Luke 19:41 Now when Jesus approached Jerusalem and saw the city, he wept over it,

42 saying, “If you had known, even you, especially in this your day, the things that make for your peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes.”

Pilate's Dream

[Pilate sees the Man from Galilee in a dream] [Close-up on an anguished Pilate]

Luke 3:1 Now in the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, Pontius Pilate [was] governor of Judea.

Matt 27:19 While he was sitting on the judgment seat, his wife sent to him, saying, “Have nothing to do with that just man, for I have suffered many things today in a dream because of him.”

The Temple

[The Temple] [Girls dancing] [Boys gaming] [Jesus bursts through the money-lenders, scattering their money]

Matt 21:12 And Jesus went into the temple of God, and cast out all them that sold and bought in the temple, and overthrew the tables of the moneychangers, and the seats of them that sold doves,

13 And he said unto them, “It is written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer,’ but you have made it a ‘den of thieves.’”

[A beseeching leper]

Matt 21:14 The blind and lame came to him in the temple courts, and he healed them.

Matt 8:2 And behold, a leper came and worshiped him, saying, “Lord, if you are willing, you can make me clean.”

Mark 3:10 For he had healed many, so that all who were afflicted with diseases pressed toward him in order that they could touch him.

[The blind and the lame clamour for Jesus' attention]

I Don't Know How To Love Him

[Mary sings]

Damned For All Time/Blood Money

Matt 26:14 Then one of the twelve, the one named Judas Iscariot, went to the chief priests

15 and said, “What will you give me to betray him into your hands?” So they counted out to him thirty pieces of silver.

[Annas is impassive] [Caiaphas offers 30 pieces of silver to Judas] [Caiaphas impassive] [Judas clutches the money]

Continue: Act II»

Photographs courtesy of Stewart MacPherson and Scenic Projects [scenicprojects.co.uk].